U.S. arrests Chinese-Mexican suspected meth king

[Jean]

U.S. arrests Chinese-Mexican suspected meth king
Tue Jul 24, 2007 12:46AM EDT
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - The United States arrested on Monday a Mexican laboratory owner accused of helping make huge quantities of crystal meth, four months after police found $206 million cash in his Mexico City mansion.

Mexico's attorney general, Eduardo Medina Mora, said U.S. authorities had confirmed the arrest of Chinese-born Zhenli Ye Gon.

"We have received the news informally but confirmed by official sources that the arrest took place," Medina Mora said on Mexican television network Televisa.

Mexico has requested the extradition of Ye Gon, the attorney general's office said in a statement. He was arrested in the Washington suburb of Rockville, Maryland.

It was not immediately clear if the arrest was the result of Mexico's request, although U.S. authorities had previously

said no warrants had been issued for Ye Gon. Mexico now has 60 days to make its case for extradition.

Mexican police in March raided a mansion owned by Ye Gon and found wads of U.S. bank notes in bulging suitcases and overflowing closets.

Seven people were arrested after that raid in the swanky Lomas de Chapultepec neighborhood. It also turned up six Mercedes-Benz vehicles and pistols equipped with silencers, but Ye Gon escaped to the United States.

Ye Gon, a naturalized Mexican, is accused of importing through Mexican ports huge quantities of chemicals used to make the powerful stimulant crystal meth.

Ye Gon says he is an innocent victim of a government plot.

Mexican methamphetamine producers have muscled in on the U.S. market. So-called superlabs that mass produce the drug have sprung up across Mexico, where precursor chemicals like pseudoephedrine are more easily available.

The government recently clamped down sales of cough remedies that contain pseudoephedrine.

Police say a company run by Ye Gon illegally imported chemicals and that he was setting up a lab to make crystal meth, or methamphetamine, a powerful stimulant.

Ye Gon has caused a scandal in Mexico in recent weeks by saying a government minister forced him to hide the cash under threat of death during last year's election campaign.

President Felipe Calderon has deployed thousands of police and soldiers across Mexico to clamp down on drug cartels since taking office in December. So far, March's raid of Ye Gon's house has been the only high-profile bust.

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/ ... 3220070724

[Dixie]

Mexico to Keep Millions Seized Off Chinese-Born Businessman
DPA

When Mexican agents raided his Mediterranean-style mansion in the posh Las Lomas de Chapultepec neighborhood in March, they discovered $205 million in U.S. currency. All cash. Mostly $100 bills.

Mexico City - The Mexican government will keep 205 million dollars seized from a Chinese-born Mexican businessman accused of drug trafficking and money laundering, the office of the attorney general said Wednesday. The authorities said the funds would be used in the areas of health and justice as nobody claimed the money within a 90-day deadline.

"The goods in question have been abandoned in favour of the federal government," a statement from the office said.

An arrest warrant has been issued by Mexican authorities for Zhenli Ye Gon, who remains at large and is believed to have fled to the United States.

Mexico has asked the United States to arrest Zhenli and have him extradited over the illegal importation into Mexico of 50 tonnes de pseudoephedrine to be used in the manufacture of synthetic drugs.

However, Zhenli, who became a Mexican citizen in 2003, denies any role in illegal activities.

The 205 million dollars were found in Zhenli's house in May. He claims the chemicals he bought were legally obtained and says two armed men linked to the ruling party in Mexico forced him - by threatening him and his family - to keep the money before the Mexican presidential election of July 2006.

The cash, according to Zhenli, was to be used to destabilize the Mexican government in case the conservative National Action Party (PAN) of current President Felipe Calderon did not win the election.

http://www.banderasnews.com/0707/nr-mex ... llions.htm

[NCByrd]

What idiot would go to the police and say that drug money was his????

[Dixie]

That's a lot of money!

If Mexico wants him extradited, then the US needs to say give us our Dollar bills back! Those are stacks of Ben Franklins.

Dixie

[Jean]

US Arrests Mexico's Suspected Meth King
Ioan Grillo - Associated Press
July 24, 2007

Mexico City - Mexico said Monday that U.S. authorities have arrested alleged methamphetamine trafficker Zhenli Ye Gon, whose mansion was the scene of what U.S. officials say was the world's largest seizure of drug cash.

Ye Gon was surprised by Drug Enforcement Administration agents at a Maryland restaurant where he was meeting with one of his lawyers, said another of his attorneys, Ning Ye.

In Washington, DEA spokesman Garrison Courtney said Ye Gon was arrested on drug smuggling and money laundering charges, adding that the fugitive was tracked down by agents and did not turn himself in.

Ye Gon is wanted in Mexico on organized crime, drug trafficking and weapons charges. Mexican officials have requested his arrest for extradition.

In March, Mexican agents found more than $207 million in dollar, peso and euro bills in a mansion owned by Ye Gon in one of the capital's most exclusive neighborhoods.

Mexican Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora said the money was connected to one of the hemisphere's largest networks for trafficking pseudoephedrine, the main ingredient in methamphetamines. He said the ring had been operating since 2004, illegally importing the substance and selling it to a drug cartel that mixed it into the crystal form and imported into the United States.

Ye Gon said the chemicals imported by his company, Unimed Pharm Chem de Mexico SA, were legitimate and intended for use in prescription drugs to be made at a factory he was building in Toluca, just west of the Mexican capital.

Ye Gon also claimed that $150 million of the money belonged Mexico's ruling party, and that he was forced to store it for party officials in his mansion under threat of death during the 2006 presidential race, which Felipe Calderon narrowly won.

Calderon has called the accusations "pure fiction."

Ye, the attorney, said DEA agents swarmed a restaurant in Silver Spring, Md. at about 9:30 p.m. and raided the house where Ye Gon had been staying. He said Ye Gon went willingly.

The Mexican Attorney General's office said Ye Gon was detained in Rockville, Md. The discrepancy could not immediately be explained.

Ye said he was surprised by the arrest because he had reached a verbal agreement last week with a DEA agent in Mexico that called for Ye Gon to surrender to U.S. marshals on Thursday. In return, Ye Gon was to be tried in the United States, not Mexico, Ye said.

"Only the United States can provide the most comprehensive procedural safeguards concerning what is happening on the Mexican side," Ye said.

Ye denounced the "lousy evidence made up by Mexican government" and said Ye Gon would apply for political asylum in the U.S.

Medina Mora called the arrest "magnificent news" and said Mexican officials had 60 days to file their legal arguments for extradition.

He added that Ye Gon's girlfriend Michelle Wong has been detained in Las Vegas and she may also face criminal charges in connection with the trafficking.

Ye Gon's other U.S. lawyer, Martin F. McMahon, had said he would ask that Ye Gon be given asylum in the United States and called for congressional hearings and a DEA investigation into his client's claims.

Rogelio de la Garza, Ye Gon's lawyer in Mexico, said he feared that U.S. authorities may simply deport him to Mexico to avoid a drawn out battle in U.S. courts.

"I don't know if his visa (for the United States) has run our or not," De la Garza told The Associated Press.

U.S. anti-drug officials have praised Calderon's crackdown on Mexican traffickers since taking office. DEA chief Karen Tandy also praised Mexican agents following the March money seizure.

"This is like law enforcement hitting the ultimate jackpot. But luck had nothing to do with this windfall," Tandy said, calling it "the largest single drug-cash seizure the world has ever seen."

http://www.banderasnews.com/0707/nr-tra ... rested.htm